Robot army {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? A hacker showed a reporter just how easy it is to hack into one of the world's biggest yard-care bot makers' robots by almost driving over him with a lawnmower. 🤖

Send this to a friend you'd mow the lawn with. ⛳

In This Open Letter

SA’s R42bn legal industry is super expensive because our 35’500 registered attorneys spend 50 and 80 hours a week reviewing cases (and those are billable hours) – so this local founder built a business to solve it (and win back his friend)...

The obvious fix for more affordable legal looks like AI: GPT4 passed the Bar exam in 2023 already. But there’s a problem. 

LegalGPT be trippin’: There are so many stories of legal teams getting into trouble because they used AI that hallucinated case documents. Not to mention most tools are built in the US and Europe, so how they supposed to know SA case law anyway?

One local founder has the solve…

The local legal AI built on SA laws

Anvaya is a local AI legal assistant that helps attorneys research, draft and review legal documents. It’s trained on verified SA cases, legislation and court procedure, so it actually understands the jurisdiction and local context.

That means SA lawyers get documents drafted to the exact procedural standard of any given court. And not in days, 15 minutes, flat.

The trick, Anvaya founder Lynton Naicker tells us, is Anvaya’s local law repository and a verification layer: Three overarching AI agents checking each other's work. One interprets the query through a local legal lens; then 51 agents (each specialising in a distinct area of SA law) ensure the output reflects the discipline you're working in; while a third agent then audits everything before it outputs. 

You can also see all its reasoning and sources.

It all came from a few missed matches

Lynton says he actually built Anvaya when a lawyer friend became estranged – they’d always be too busy at work for a beer, a rugby match, whatever. So Lynton built a basic document repository with a conversational assistant on top to help the friend reclaim time.

It worked so well, Lynton got a cofounder and R&D-ed it for 18 months with any lawyer who’d agree. But when a senior attorney praised it for helping them win a high court case, they knew it was gold and Anvaya was born.

And the name’s not fluff, either. Anvaya starts with an A because it’ll be listed on top of an alphabetical conference list (LOL), and it’s human-sounding ‘cos they wanted it to feel like a co-worker. 

We're watching this space…

Cloud On Demand is a South African cloud services aggregator that's been operating since 2012. They sit between the hyperscalers (Microsoft Azure, AWS) and the local ecosystem of software vendors, MSPs, resellers and end customers.

The model matters most for SA SaaS operators: Their ISV programme gives independent software vendors and SaaS founders something they usually can't access alone: a significant Azure or AWS cost reduction, a dedicated business consultant, 30-day payment terms, direct access to cloud specialists and solutions architects and listings on both their partner channel marketplace and public-facing marketplaces.

In short, the GTM and infrastructure leverage you'd otherwise need a much bigger company to negotiate.

If you're building software and want to scale globally, this is the place to start.

🔐 68% of Passwords Cracked in a Day. New research from Kaspersky shows most passwords can be broken within 24 hours. We clearly need a better way to protect our stuff.

🌐 .co.za Growth Stalls. New data shows SA domain registrations have slowed, so are people moving to .com or other extensions, or are South Africans just building fewer websites? An important question for our digital economy.

🚕 E-Hailing Outpacing Fuel Spend. SA's e-hailing spend is growing faster than fuel costs, with remarkable adoption stats, but some say Uber might be operating illegally in SA. A few drivers we spoke to say traffic cops pull them over quite regularly.

🏦 Mexico's Bank Card Problem Is a Trust Lesson. Mexican banks handed out millions of cards that nobody wants because 40% of Mexicans don't trust financial institutions to protect their money and data. Sound familiar? Trust is everything: for banks, for fintechs, for government. SA knows this.

💬 Already There. Your customers check WhatsApp 23+ times a day. They don't need to download your app or follow your page — they're already there. The smartest brands in SA have figured out how to show up. Chat Inc can show you how.*

* From our partners. Find all the best service providers for your business in our Founder Stack.

When you buy off-the-shelf software for everything, you end up paying for endless unused features. So we got a local AI implementation specialist to break down exactly when buying makes sense and when building your own is the smarter (and cheaper) move.

Turns out, there are 5 steps to figure out when to buy software versus build it yourself.

☝️ Send this to a friend who's drowning in SaaS subscriptions.

AI is now 2× better at attacking crypto than defending it. Binance Research's latest report shows AI-powered exploits cost just $1.22 per contract and are getting 22% cheaper every two months. Their systems have protected users from $10.5bn in potential losses since 2025. Read the full report.

Binance Online streams Tuesday with CZ, BlackRock & Chamath. A free global virtual event on 13 May featuring CZ, BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein, Chamath Palihapitiya, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and more. Pre-register on Binance Square.

Lock your own withdrawals. Binance has launched Withdraw Protection, a voluntary self-lock on on-chain withdrawals for 1–7 days to prevent heat-of-the-moment errors or security breaches. You set the rules, you control the unlock. Check it out.

Disclaimer: Digital asset prices can be volatile. The value of your investment may go down or up and you may not get back the amount invested. You are solely responsible for your investment decisions and Binance is not liable for any losses you may incur. Not financial advice. For more information, see our Terms of Use and Risk Warning.

Last week, we featured TourBiddy's travel rate management platform, asking where SA tourism's biggest untapped opportunity lies. The vote says: Start at home…

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏕️ More small DMCs getting access to proper tech (3%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🌍 Converting more international arrivals into longer stays (6%)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🤝 Better tools for local operators to compete with global platforms (35%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✈️ More direct flights to unlock new source markets (13%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🏘️ Growing the domestic market beyond the usual suspects (43%)

Your 2 cents…

Spot on, Lebogang — SA has the culture, the stories and the scenery. We just need one brand-level narrative that travels as well as our tourists should. 🇿🇦

DevConf JHB – 12 May, Midrand: 5 tracks, 35+ speakers and the full dev toolkit — SA's biggest software dev conference kicks off this week. Grab your tickets.

DevConf CPT – 14 May, Century City: Cape Town gets the same energy — same tracks, same calibre, different mountain. Book now.

Startup of the Year 2026 – 14 May, CPT: 10 finalists pitch live, judges score in real time, Innovation City Awards close the night. Get tickets.

AI in Action: How SA Teams Are Really Using It – 4 Jun, CPT: Three live AI demos, a deep panel and proper networking at Innovation City. Drinks on us. Grab tickets.

🧩 Tool to Try: Snoopreport tracks any Instagram profile's likes, follows and activity.

🌍 That's Interesting: In the 1980s, H. David Werder sat on a pole for 439 days to protest $1.20 gasoline in Florida. In 2008, most people had forgotten, until he ran for political office as "the flagpole sitter."

🎸 Next Level: Just a reminder that Mateus Asato is a living modern-day guitar virtuoso.

🌐 Wow Site: Natted Cloud teaches computer networking practically.